Queensland Housing and Public Works Minister Bruce Flegg has fallen on his sword, resigning from the cabinet and taking responsibility for “sloppy administration” within his office.

The matters I'm talking about here are sloppy administrative oversights, but they did happen under my watch.

Premier Campbell Newman told reporters Dr Flegg had done the right thing by deciding to quit his post, but also bemoaned how public debate was focused on “smaller issues, administrative issues, as opposed to the things that really matter to Queenslanders”.

Outgoing housing and public works minister Bruce Flegg, in a file photo. Photo: Harrison Saragossi

Former senior media adviser Graeme Hallett, one of two senior staffers sacked from Dr Flegg's office in less than a week, on Tuesday also accused Dr Flegg of continuing to practise as a doctor after the election while his official diary hid this fact.

Following the resignation, Mr Hallett said he believed scrutiny of his “revelations about Dr Flegg's erratic conduct as a minister has served the people of Queensland and the Newman government well”.

“The former minister's actions did not at any time to my knowledge go to corruption or personal gain,” Mr Hallett said in a statement issued on Wednesday afternoon.

“His central problem was to become immersed in actions that were politically and administratively inept. I was pleased to work with him on his constructive policy agenda for needy Queensland people who need public housing.”

Mr Hallett said he stood by his allegation that the former minister misled the budget estimates committee by tabling “a grossly inaccurate” register of lobbyist contact.

Dr Flegg is the second minister to depart the Newman government cabinet since the Liberal National Party's March election landslide, with Gympie MP David Gibson quitting as police minister shortly after being sworn in as a result of unlicensed driving revelations.

Dr Flegg, a former Queensland Liberal Party leader, told Parliament the decision to quit the cabinet was his alone, but signalled he would continue to serve as the member for Moggill.

"It has come to my notice over recent days - principally today when I was able to retrieve emails from a server, emails that I have never seen before - that within my office there have been a number of administrative failures," he said.

Dr Flegg said in his time in Parliament he had seen the "unedifying spectacle of ministers and their staff refusing to take responsibility for what happens under their watch", for example Labor's health payroll disaster.

"The matters I'm talking about here are sloppy administrative oversights, but they did happen under my watch,” he said.

Dr Flegg said he did not want to see MPs, ministers and Parliament “substantially damaged in the eyes of Queenslanders”.

Opposition Leader Annastacia Palaszczuk on Tuesday called for Dr Flegg to resign or be sacked, in the wake of a series of claims made by Mr Hallett at a media conference outside Queensland Parliament a day after he was fired.

Ms Palaszczuk, who vowed to lodge a complaint accusing Dr Flegg of misleading Parliament by lodging an incomplete lobbyist register, said it would be up to Speaker Fiona Simpson to assess whether to refer the allegations to the Ethics Committee.

Mr Newman is yet to name a permanent replacement for Dr Flegg, whom he lauded for his work in the Housing and Public Works portfolio. Energy and Water Supply Minister Mark McArdle will act in the role until a decision is made in coming days.

Wednesday's upheaval comes after Mr Newman resisted calls to sack Dr Flegg, with his office on Tuesday declaring the Premier maintained confidence in the minister.

'My decision to quit'

Dr Flegg said he had been very privileged to serve as Minister for Housing and Public Works since the March election.

Dr Flegg said he had decided to tender his resignation to Mr Newman.

“I am taking that action. The Premier has not asked me or approached me in any way about that,” Dr Flegg said.

Dr Flegg made mention of media and commentators focusing on “trivia”.

He paid tribute to Mr Newman and the “very fine” ministers who served in his cabinet.

"Overwhelmingly this government is the best thing that has happened to Queensland in decades,” Dr Flegg said.

“It is not about me. It is about a very fine government getting the best outcome it can for Queensland."

Dr Flegg said he had seen a "revolving door" of incompetent ministers who failed under the Bligh government but never took responsibility.

"They [the Newman ministry] are a fabulous cabinet of ministers and people need to give them a go,” he said.

'Dignity and honour'

After Dr Flegg’s statement, Mr Newman told Parliament the MP had “demonstrated incredible dignity and a great sense of honour” by taking responsibility.

Mr Newman said Dr Flegg had shown everyone what the Westminster ministerial tradition was all about.

The Premier said he agreed with Dr Flegg that in politics there was too much focus on the "minutiae" rather than on dealing with the big issues.

Mr Newman said Dr Flegg had declared that nobody had received financial benefit from the administrative failings "and I believe we should all accept that".

Mr Newman said Dr Flegg was a compassionate man who had been doing everything he could to address the problem of 30,000 families languishing on the public housing waiting list.

"On that issue Dr Flegg was delivering," Mr Newman said.

Mr Newman said he would make a decision on who would fill the role but thanked Dr Flegg for showing courage and dignity.

Asked whether it was ultimately the minister's responsibility, not staff's responsibility, to maintain each lobbyist register, Ms Bates said: "There's no legal requirement for me to even table [release] it and I have already answered that question."

Later, when asked to recall the last occasion when she had made a statement to Parliament and not had to later correct the record, Ms Bates blasted the opposition for continuing to waste taxpayers' money asking "irrelevant, ridiculous questions".

Lobbyist claims under scrutiny

Deputy Opposition Leader Tim Mulherin asked Mr Newman to explain what involvement the head of his government media unit, Lee Anderson, had in preparing a statement ahead of Fairfax Media’s November 2 report on contact between Dr Flegg’s office and lobbyist son Jonathon Flegg.

Mr Newman said the question was “outrageous”. He said he did not know the details of Mr Anderson’s involvement but he was “more than happy to find out”.

On November 2, a Fairfax Media report highlighted two occasions in June when Jonathon Flegg, the manager of government relations at lobbyist company Rowland, made contact with his father’s office to request meetings.

Dr Flegg’s spokesman, Mr Hallett, at the time said the contacts had not resulted in meetings and Dr Flegg had ordered his staff not to allow Jonathon Flegg to lobby his office.

“The minister did not consider professional contacts were appropriate,” Mr Hallett said in a written response to questions at the time.

“The minister requested his chief of staff to ensure all ministerial staff had no professional contacts with Jonathon Flegg.”

However, Mr Hallett on Tuesday told reporters he had discovered dozens of occasions when there was contact between Jonathon Flegg and his father’s office. A document Dr Flegg presented to a budget estimates committee hearing in October indicated just two such contacts.

Mr Hallett said the claim that lobbying contact was banned had been “spin” and apologised for having provided incorrect information to Fairfax.

“That was basically decided between Mr Anderson and myself,” he said of the ban claim.

“I have to say I’m ashamed to admit it, that is a lie; that never happened.”

But Mr Anderson on Tuesday disputed the suggestion he was complicit in providing false information to the media. “I would not do that and I reject that claim utterly and totally,” he told Fairfax.

“The statement that Graeme [Hallett] supplied to you, the fact the minister had indicated to his chief of staff he didn’t want any lobbying contact from Jonathon, was certainly to my knowledge and still is absolutely correct.

“If Graeme had any knowledge otherwise he didn’t share it with me.”

Lobbying firm Rowland on Tuesday announced it had suspended Jonathon Flegg pending an internal investigation, saying his employment agreement prohibited him from liaising with the minister's office or his department on behalf of Rowland or its business clients.

In Parliament on November 1, Mr Newman insisted decisions over RTI applications were no longer handled by political staffers in ministerial officers, but instead by independent departmental officials.

“We have placed the assessment of RTI requests in the hands of the officials of the respective departments – unlike those opposite, who used to allow their own political apparatchiks in their own ministerial offices to assess such requests,” he told Parliament.

However, a Department of Housing and Public Works RTI and privacy manager referred to one of Dr Flegg's ministerial media adviser when responding to an opposition request for the minister's diary entries between April and August.

Under a section labelled 'authority', the October 23 letter says: “In accordance with a Direction by the Minister for Housing and Public Works, Mr Martin Kennedy, Media Advisor, has made this decision under section 31 of the RTI Act.”

On Tuesday, Mr Newman told Parliament this was despite his repeated orders to ministers to delegate the role to independent departmental officials.

Mr Newman told reporters he did not force Dr Flegg’s resignation but did believe the minister had to quit.

“Yes, I believe he did [have to resign], given his sort of feeling about the way it was distracting from the job of the government which is to get the economy going again,” Mr Newman said.

Flanked by Deputy Premier Jeff Seeney and Treasurer Tim Nicholls at the media conference, Mr Newman said Dr Flegg was a decent man and his actions stood in stark contrast to former Labor ministers who refused to quit over failings.

“I have reluctantly and sadly had to accept that [resignation] but he has done the right thing,” Mr Newman said.

The Premier said Dr Flegg had been let down by senior staff and sacking the chief of staff and chief media adviser had been “the right thing to do”.

But Dr Flegg had also resigned because he did not want to cause a distraction from the government’s work.

Mr Newman would not comment on whether Dr Flegg had lied to Parliament, saying such claims were up to other people to assess.

Mr Newman indicated he was unaware of the true number of contacts between lobbyist Jonathon Flegg and his father’s office.

“I don’t have that information,” he said.

Mr Newman said Dr Flegg told him of his plans to resign just before Parliament began on Wednesday afternoon, so he had not yet had time to consider who would be appointed as the cabinet replacement.

Mr Newman, who had promised to restore accountability and ministerial responsibility, bemoaned how the public debate at a federal and state government level was focused on “smaller issues, administrative issues, as opposed to the things that really matter to Queenslanders”.

“Our collective psyche has gone off and we’re now worried about small, bit still important things, but we’re really leaving the debate on the big issues alone,” Mr Newman said.

Ms Palaszczuk told reporters the resignation came as no surprise because there were numerous unanswered questions involving Dr Flegg.

She accused Mr Newman of lacking the leadership to act sooner and sack Dr Flegg.

Ms Palaszczuk hit back at the Premier over accusations Labor was not focusing on the big picture, saying a ministerial job came with high expectations and ultimate responsibility for staffers’ conduct.

The Opposition Leader said documentation released by Mr Hallett supported the notion Dr Flegg’s former staffer was trying to urge the minister to disclose full details.

“What it did clearly show is I believe that the former senior media adviser was in fact trying to get his minister to do the right thing,” she said.

Ms Palaszczuk denied it was a bit rich for her to be talking about high standards of ministerial accountability, given the criticisms that were levelled at former Labor premier Anna Bligh over the same issue.

“The Premier [Mr Newman] set these high standards during the election campaign,” she said.

“Under a future Labor government would I expect those high standards? Yes I would.”

It has come to my notice over recent days—principally today when I was able to retrieve emails from a server, emails that I have never seen before—that within my office there have been a number of administrative failures.

113 comments

Oh please, please let this be the first of many resignations and re-shuffles in the name of common decency and reduction in the hypocrisy of this government.

Commenter

intheknow

Date and time

November 14, 2012, 2:15PM

Amen

Commenter

Titus

Location

Brisbane

Date and time

November 14, 2012, 2:26PM

Really.. and just how many ALP Failed, incompetent MP's did the honourable thing and fell on their sword!

Commenter

ME

Date and time

November 14, 2012, 2:29PM

ME - as a whole group of people said earlier this year - "welcome to the real world" and a rapidly growing not so silent majority!

Commenter

bne

Date and time

November 14, 2012, 2:54PM

Agreed. Annastacia, you got your wish and rightly so, saying that we didn't see the same from the Labor Govt when in power hence your party was voted out partly for this reason. Ms Bates should be next and Campbell has quite a few on the reserve bench. Let hope it doesn't keep coming down to public presssure and is done when the reason is just.

Commenter

chrisk

Location

The Gap

Date and time

November 14, 2012, 3:00PM

@ME-lets face it-Flegg was a dud.

Commenter

John Forrest

Location

The Gap

Date and time

November 14, 2012, 3:06PM

@ John Forrest.. I agree.... Pity the ALP duds just hung in for their pensions

Commenter

ME

Date and time

November 14, 2012, 4:35PM

Question is, which intellectual giant will replace him?...Anyone noticed the quality of some of the other LNP ministers and backbenchers who appear on tv from time to time?...Moreover, there are times when I feel I'm in a time warp and it's still 2011...Even some of the faces seem remarkably similar.

Commenter

Paladin

Date and time

November 14, 2012, 7:16PM

@ME - and now we have LNP duds who have nothing to offer the public apart from feckless attitudes! But hey, well done for your blind support - well done!

Commenter

bne

Date and time

November 15, 2012, 5:29AM

@ ME - during the election Newman promised a higher degree of accountability. He proclaimed that a government lead by him would be accountable to the Queensland people. That is one of the reasons, among many others, that the LNP was elected. That being the case you cannot now point to the pitiful efforts of the former government when Dr Flegg did not live up the the standards that his own party set as the new bar for accountability during the election. I don't care what happened before, the labour ministers were largely duds, that is why they are gone. The LNP will no doubt win the next election due to their current numbers, but the people of Queensland have shown that they will not tolerate being treated as fools. Newman promised the higher level of accountability he now has to deliver it, forget about what happened in the past.

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